Amare et Sapere
by Meiran Chang
Summary: Dragon Age fusion: Sam is a Templar, Kurt is an apprentice mage. Read the primer if you don't know DA canon; it's dark fantasy. When forbidden romance blooms, Sam will have to decide for himself how far his vows can bend before they break. Sam/Kurt.
1. Primer: On the World of Dragon Age

**Primer.**

This fic takes place in the world of Bioware's epic dark fantasy video game, Dragon Age. For those of you who are unfamiliar with this game, I'll be providing a primer to the salient points of the world environment as they relate to this fic.

On the continent of Thedas, in the country of Ferelden, the Chantry is the dominant religion. It is based on the worship of Andraste, a young barbarian slave in the Tevinter Imperium who was visited by the Maker, led a victorious army against her oppressors and was betrayed and martyred. She's like Joan of Arc plus Jesus.

Mages are people who are able to manipulate "mana," or magical energy. They take lyrium potions, a bright blue, specially-prepared concoction of rare and valuable ore mined by the dwarves, to augment their mana. Mages are born with a special connection to the Fade, the ever-changing realm of dreams and spirits. Elves and humans visit the Fade every night when they dream, but mages may walk the Fade while awake and conscious. For reasons no one fully understands, this attracts demons, who seek to possess mages. A possessed mage is known as an abomination and becomes a horrifying and powerful distortion of themselves bent to the demon's will. All mages, no matter how strong, are susceptible.

For this reason, mages are sequestered in Circles of Magi. In Ferelden, the Circle of Magi is a tall, tall tower in the middle of Lake Calenhad, far from any population centers. There, they are guarded by Templars, soldiers of the Chantry who are charged with protecting the population from the dangers of abominations. Templars take lyrium as well as mages, ostensibly to augment their magic-negating and mage-hunting abilities. Lyrium is addictive, and over time, Templars will succumb to their addiction.

Templars also hunt apostates – mages who do not reside in Circles, have run away from Circles, or practice non-Circle magical disciplines – and maleficars. Maleficars are practitioners of forbidden blood magic, a school of magic that involves using blood as fuel for magical spells. It produces proportionally greater results the more blood is spilled and permits a mage to control the minds of others. The Chantry tends to conflate apostates with maleficars, although not all apostates practice blood magic. The general public strongly shares the Chantry's view, their fear and distrust supported by their ignorance and by historical and religious reasoning.

Children with magical abilities are turned over to the Templars of their local Chantry and brought to the Circle Tower for training, forfeiting all titles, properties, and family ties. Blood is taken from them and placed in a vial called a phylactery that enables Templars to track any runaways. Apprentice mages undergo a test called the Harrowing in order to become full enchanters of the Circle, a test whose details are kept secret until the moment it occurs. The apprentices are thrust into the Fade as demon bait. If they successfully ward off the demon, they pass. If not, the Templars set in the Harrowing Chamber kill the abomination.

A mage who is not considered suitable for the Harrowing is made Tranquil, branded with a lyrium rune that forever cuts off their connection to the Fade. Tranquil mages do not have feelings and do not dream, but cannot be possessed and cannot work magic. An apprentice too frightened of the Harrowing may volunteer for the Rite of Tranquility, which is irreversible. It is illegal by Chantry law to make a Harrowed mage Tranquil. Their condition makes them useful for working directly with lyrium to create runes and enchant magical items for the Circle.

Finally, a word on the social place of elves. Millenia ago elves had a powerful civilization, but when humans arrived, elves died in droves of human diseases and their proximity to humans robbed them of their immortality. They attempted to seal off their kingdom, Arlathan, but the rising Tevinter Imperium attacked with its legions and blood magic, and Arlathan fell. Those who survived spent the next five hundred years as slaves. When Andraste's armies rose, the elf slave Shartan roused his people to join her rebellion, and in thanks, Andraste bequeathed the elves the land of the Dales in southern Orlais.

The elves attempted to recapture their lost civilization, which included worship of the elven pantheon, not the Maker. Therefore, the Chantry declared an Exalted March against the Dales, destroying the elven homeland a second time. Some survivors became proud wanderers known as Dalish elves, but the rest were absorbed into human kingdoms, sequestered in segregated alienages and treated as rabble and trash, their history and culture long forgotten.

Hopefully that's sufficient background. I'll try to establish the rest via narration, but any questions feel free to ask.


	2. Chapter 1

**1.**

"_You're _new," remarked a high, lively voice, breaking Sam out of his stultifying boredom.

Sam squinted through the visor of his heavy helm. The voice had come from a tall, slender young man marked as an apprentice mage by the style of his russet robes. Blue-green-blue eyes met Sam's directly with neither challenge nor fear, only curiosity.

How the apprentice could tell Sam apart from any other Templar was beyond Sam's ken; Sam could barely tell _himself _apart from any of his barracks-mates once they were in full kit. What about him came across as so obviously _new_? Sam wondered uneasily.

The young man stood before him, clearly expecting some sort of response. Sam thought fast. Templars were strongly discouraged from chumming around with the mages they protected, as it was harder for them to properly ward their charges if they grew overly attached or exceedingly emotionally involved. Fresh out of training, Sam had great hopes of becoming a field Templar and hunting dangerous illegal mages for the Chantry, but all Templars had to put in time at the Circle Tower before they were even considered for such positions.

So here Sam was, and he had no intention of getting stuck here over one chatty student. He jerked his chin upwards, breaking the mage's gaze, and cleared his throat.

"Right, right. Wouldn't want to obscure the holy purity of your cause, deigning to talk to us. Well done, right by the book," said the young man loftily, arching fine dark brows. He crossed his arms. "And we aren't supposed to talk to you, either, not that that stops us. We _are _all cooped up here _together_,you do realize." He smirked a little. "Your eight-hour shifts standing around in full plate in front of the same old boring door must be _so_ entertaining while you're piously ignoring us. What do you _do_, though? Recite the Chant in your head? Count the bricks in the wall? I've always wondered."

Sam shifted on his feet uncomfortably, his armor plates scraping against one another.

"You can tell me. We don't bite." The mage stepped forward, waving a hand in front of Sam's visor like a healer tracking the gaze of a concussed patient. "I know someone's in there, Ser Knight. You don't have to hide behind all that steel."

Sam set his jaw and took a deep breath, reaching up to gently push the young man's hand aside. His gauntlet made his own hand seem huge in comparison, silver and monstrous against the mage's naked, slender fingers. But the mage's face lit. "The golem moves!" he exclaimed, putting both hands behind his back demurely as he leaned in not at all demurely.

It was ridiculous for a man in massive armor to recoil from a mage in robes, Sam told himself as the young man's eyes were suddenly brought much closer to his own, remaining stolidly put. Blue-green-blue was about right; the mage's eyes canted upwards, uncommonly bright, a swirl of color like spring leaves and lyrium.

"But does it speak?" the mage continued, quirking an eyebrow delicately. "Here. I'll start this off." Long fingers splayed flat on his own chest, the mage lifted his chin, cleared his throat, and stated, "My name is Kurt. And you are...?"

"...Samuel," Sam said reluctantly, his voice a little hoarse from hours of disuse.

"Ser Samuel speaks at last!" Kurt clapped his other hand over the first, smiling. "Brave Ser Samuel, speaking to a real live mage! Charmed, I'm sure."

Giving his full name had been intended to keep a proper distance between himself and the mage, but from the teasing lilt of the apprentice's dulcet voice, it had done anything but.

"Next time, we'll see if we can get that tin pot off your head. You have lovely eyes. Wonder what the rest of you is like?" Kurt - the mage, Sam corrected himself instantly, the mage - executed a mocking little bow, clear eyes flicking up beneath long lashes for a last inscrutable look before the mage turned and swanned down the corridor, robes whirling with his graceful walk.

Belatedly, Sam returned his gaze to the wall in front of him. Back to counting bricks, he told himself, as though the apprentice's pointed, elegant features didn't linger in his memory, as though he couldn't still sense the diaphanous trails of a great young power poised, disconcertingly, to bloom.


	3. Chapter 2

**2.**

"Why did you become a Templar?"

Sam started, blinking and smacking his lips together as a very unique voice yanked him out of his daze. The apprentice from the other day was standing in front of him, a pile of books in his arms as high as his chin – Kurt, Sam's mind helpfully supplied. The lit sconces in the library burnished Kurt's porcelain skin, throwing autumnal light into Kurt's cool blue-green eyes. Sam blinked again, opening his mouth to speak.

What came out as his gaze planted itself on Kurt was, "Do you need help with those?"

Kurt blinked, hefting the books in his arms easily. "I may not have the upper-body strength of you humans, but a few books on the arcane spell trees aren't going to kill me."

"'You humans?'" Sam echoed, wishing he wasn't wearing a helm and gauntlets so he could rub sleep crud out of his eyes. These late shifts, coming at the tail end of his daily lyrium dose's usefulness when most mages had retreated to their beds anyway, did nothing for him.

Kurt raised an eyebrow, turning his head slightly in a way that emphasized the delicate contours of his high cheekbones. Sam got the rather hilarious mental image of Kurt practicing in front of a mirror for hours, calculating the best angle for light and shadow across his face. "Can you not tell?"

"But you're not an elf," Sam said lamely. "You can't be. Haven't got the ears."

"Like you could tell through that great sodding bucket, anyway." Kurt dropped his pile of books on a nearby table with a dusty thud. "My mother was. Dalish, in point of fact." Kurt rolled his shoulders with a grunt.

The heathen Dalish were an entire unit in Templar studies. All that remained of the once-mighty elven nobility, the Dalish had long refused to recognize the authority of Andraste and the Maker, paying homage instead to their own tattered pantheon. Each clan was led by a mage known as a Keeper, a dangerous apostate practicing wild disciplines of forgotten magic. As far as the Chantry was concerned, Dalish Keepers were to be killed on sight.

Sam had never seen a Dalish, though he'd seen drawings, heard wild tales from the field agents. He eyed Kurt uncertainly. "I thought they were covered in tattoos," Sam ventured.

"Not _covered._" Kurt smoothed his robes beneath him as he sat, then pulled a book towards him, running a hand over the worn cover. Slender fingers traced the embossed title – _On Spirits Arcanum_ – before Kurt glanced up again_._ "She did have the – oh, what do they call it – the _vallaslin_, the facial markings. All Dalish adults do."

Sam stared at Kurt, trying to imagine the pale perfection of that face through a bramble of tattoos. Kurt stared back, his eyes narrowed slightly as though trying to see through Sam's helm to whatever lay beneath. "So then," Sam began, "why aren't you..."

"Because my father was human," Kurt interrupted shortly. "Half-elven children come out human, Ser Samuel." Sam's own name jarred him, harsh in Kurt's mouth. "_Maman_ died when I was six, and I was found to have magic shortly after. Strong emotions do nothing for an untrained child's self-control, and I... I didn't take well to taunting, never have."

Kurt looked away, his jaw tight, and busied himself with flipping through _On Spirits Arcanum _for a few moments. Sam got the serious sense that Kurt was leaving much of the story out, though he could fill in the blanks for himself. Elves were the second-class citizens of Thedas, scorned and reviled, left to do menial and demeaning labor or beg, borrow and steal as best they could. Crammed into squalid alienages in the cities, driven out of most small towns, elves today were the scraps left after a once-proud civilization fell not once, but twice.

In distant Tevinter, they were still slaves.

"Let us say simply that the local Chantry did not take well to a heathen apostate's elf-blood child lobbing lightning about, no matter the extenuating circumstances," Kurt finally said. He was staring down at his book, his lips pursed. "So your brave brothers in the Order were alerted, and they dragged me, a child of scarcely eight, away from my Papa kicking and screaming. They tied me up so I wouldn't bother them and took turns casting Cleanse on me the whole way to the Circle so that I could not defend myself or run." Kurt shut _On Spirits Arcanum_, throwing a curling brown lock out of his eyes with a toss of his head.

"I'm sorry," Sam said, feeling quite obvious and foolish in his pounds of armor. "I didn't know."

Kurt glanced up at that, gaze flickering with surprise, before giving a small nod with a smaller smile. It lit his canted eyes gently. "A sorry, from a Templar? Rare."

He probably wasn't supposed to apologize, Sam reflected. The Templars in Kurt's story had followed protocol for extracting mage children to the letter. But... but it sounded horrible, and the flatness in Kurt's voice had been at such tense odds with his words.

Kurt pulled forth a different book and bent his head over it, dark hair falling forward a little. Now that Sam knew, he could see Kurt's elven heritage all over his face, in his wide bright eyes, his sharp cheekbones and high brow, even down to the slender bones of his hands and wrists, his long fingers.

"Did you really want to know?" Sam blurted out before he could stop himself, his voice sounding muffled and tinny even to himself. Kurt looked up again inquisitively, candlelight brushing warm tones into his dark hair. "About – me being a Templar."

Kurt's brow wrinkled slightly, but he nodded. The earlier still tension dissolved into faint amusement. "I wouldn't have asked if I didn't."

"It's not very interesting."

"I'll judge that, Ser Samuel." Kurt's pink lips quirked up a little, as if to some private joke.

Sam shook his head, feeling sweat drip down the back of his neck. "You can just call me Sam. No one calls me Ser anything."

"I wouldn't want to be disrespectful, Ser Sam."

"Just Sam, Kurt."

"All right." Kurt rested his chin in his palm, curled fingers resting against his cheek, turning his face towards Sam. His abrupt full attention made Sam want to check and make sure there weren't any rust spots on his armor. "Sam."

The way the apprentice said his name - the way he gave a sweet, slow blink as he spoke that single syllable - made Sam's heartbeat stutter. Sam shifted on his feet as he began, "Um, well, I was a foundling..."

He had been orphaned as little more than a babe-in-arms, found squalling and forgotten in the bloody wreckage highwaymen had left of his family by a passing lay sister; not an uncommon story, unfortunately, in the lawless Fereldan hinterland. Sam was distinguished only by his survival.

He'd grown up in the Chantry of a sleepy nearby village, where he'd said his prayers every night, helped with the vegetable garden, and gotten into mischief along with every other foundling and orphan there. Country life was simple and quiet and full of hard, honest work, and life passed slowly, in tune with the gentle rhythm of the seasons. The Revered Mother told the stories of Blessed Andraste, the miserable slavery from which she rose and the corrupt empire over which her holy armies triumphed and the mortal betrayal that caused the Maker to turn His gaze once more from His creation, and Sam listened with his whole heart.

But as Sam grew into the tall strapping vigor of youth, he found himself restless, without direction. The clean simplicity of the Chantry's teachings suited him, but neither the quiet life of a Chantry Affirmed nor the studious existence of a brother cleric appealed to him. It was the Revered Mother herself who suggested that Sam pursue a vocation with the Templar Order, and the idea of seeing the world and protecting the vulnerable in the name of Andraste sounded better than fighting for some lord over earthly squabbles that meant nothing to the Maker.

"I didn't want to stay in the same village for the rest of my life, I guess," Sam finished up with a shrug, meeting Kurt's attentive gaze shyly. "I wanted to live for something more."

"Hmm." Kurt's lips curled, a little sadly, a little sharply. "I understand that."

Kurt glanced up, and Sam followed his gaze, high up on the wall where a window must have been once. It was bricked-up, as were all the windows in the Circle Tower save for those in the Harrowing Chamber. Wordlessly, Kurt looked back at Sam.

Sam got the point.

"Kurt," he said softly. "Magic is -"

"'Meant to serve man, and never to rule over him.' Transfigurations 1:2." Kurt shook his head with a disdainful snort and closed his book, standing up. He was Sam's height, or close to it; his gaze barely flicked up to meet Sam's through the slit of his visor. "I've read the Chant of Light, Sam, I know what it says. It's our fault the Maker turned away. Our hubris, our power. Our fault." Kurt crossed his arms, his fingers clenching in his sleeves. "'And so is the Golden City blackened with each step you take in my Hall. Marvel at perfection, for it is fleeting. You have brought Sin to Heaven and doom upon the world.' Canticle of Threnodies, 8:13."

Chapter and verse. It was the first time in Sam's life that the words of the Chant made his stomach drop like a weighted sack. "I don't hate mages, Kurt."

"Your Chantry does."

"_I _don't."

Kurt's smile twisted, his eyes flashing. He reached out, pressing his hand to Sam's helm. Sam tensed, his gaze darted aside in an attempt to track the mage's hand. This late, they were alone in the library. If Kurt attempted some magic against him –

"Tell me that again when you're willing to show me your face," Kurt said quietly, "and I can see more than the mere shadow of your eyes." He dropped his hand and turned away, smoothing his hands over his robes unnecessarily. "It will be curfew soon, anyway. Thank you for the talk. Good night to you."

"I can walk you to the dormitory," Sam offered, feeling an urge out of nowhere to try to make amends with Kurt, though he wasn't sure what he'd done wrong. "I'll help you clean up. Kurt, I – I meant no offense."

"Leave the cleaning for the Tranquil to do. They haven't much else to occupy their days with," Kurt said, his careless shrug belying the tension in his voice. "Their punishment for daring to be mages who dreamed, I suppose."

"Kurt—"

"Good night."


	4. Chapter 3

**3.**

"Puckerman!" Sam screamed as the abomination lurched towards the other Templar, blood streaming down the twisted sinews of its face. Its eyes dimly glowed, its jaw stretching open as electricity began to crackle about its savaged hands. It was yanking magic from the Fade in great ugly tears, finesse sacrificed for power, the Veil that separated the real world from the Fade stretching painfully in Sam's Templar senses under the strain. Sam shut his eyes for an instant, gathering his will before releasing it in a nullifying Cleanse that wiped the magic from the abomination's fingertips.

The creature screamed frustration, its offense shot, and Puckerman slammed its face into his shield with a hoarse bark of triumph. Sam ran forward and raised his sword, plunging it deep into the abomination's back. His muscles shook with effort as the grotesque body jerked beneath the blow, mana draining out of it along with a hot gush of dark, thick blood. Keening, the abomination writhed; Sam knocked its claws aside with the edge of his shield, sloughing skin and muscle off the beast's flailing arm.

By the stairs, Senior Enchanter Sylvester slammed her staff on the ground. A dark entropic cloud exploded into existence and wrapped itself about the abomination, every pulse draining its life force. The enchanter took one look at Sam and flung an infusion of strength and energy his way, and Sam felt his fatigue retreat, his limbs taut and ready. He breathed in deep and yanked his sword free.

A whip of spirit fire lashed out from across the chamber, shearing the abomination's back in half as Sam slashed his dripping sword across the tough fibers of the creature's chest. Blinking sweat out of his eyes Sam saw Hudson bear forward, still faintly glowing with condemning fire. Puckerman beat at the abomination with his shield, pushing it back by main force as its claws raked across his Templar plate.

Sam felt the Veil shudder as the abomination reached into the Fade for more power, but the Senior Enchanter's enhancement spell had boosted his reserves, and Sam leveled another blast of Cleanse. The creature howled, staggering blindly as Puckerman buffeted it back.

For a moment its face was before Sam's, and Sam had a sudden, sickening, vivid memory of the apprentice that had entered the chamber. She was a girl – she had been a girl – a slight young human girl with mousy hair and a mouth set in trembling obstinacy. She'd touched a hand to the lyrium pedestal and they'd waited hours as she faced her test in the Fade, cool silvery blue swirling about her still body as her spirit walked the realm of dreams.

Then that small body rocked back from the pedestal as though hit by a ball of lightning. That petite frame had transformed in seconds, ropy tendrils of flesh engulfing it as the demon poured through. But before that, before that, it had been a brown-eyed girl in apprentice's robes. Sam thought of angled blue-green eyes blinking slow, clear and sharp as lyrium and his stomach roiled –

And Hudson was there, his sword sheathed in pure white fire as he knocked the abomination's head clean off its body.

The body convulsed, once, twice, and was still. The head rolled across the floor of the Harrowing Chamber to Sam's feet. Sweat stung Sam's eyes.

Puckerman removed his helm, running a hand over his close-cropped hair. He looked winded. "Andraste's _tits_, these sodding mages."

Hudson shot Sam a sharp look, his tone deceptively mild as he said, "You froze for a second there. You all right?"

Sam nodded, cursing himself for an incompetent as the senior enchanter stalked forward. Though Hudson was the senior Templar present, Senior Enchanter Sylvester could have been his grandmother. Icy and imposing, she cast equally withering looks at all three of them. "Get out," she said with little ceremony. "I told Figgins this one should have been Tranquil." She prodded with a boot at the blood-slick form of the abomination, her lip turning up in a sneer. "I'll finish up here."

* * *

><p>Kurt stood at the lyrium pedestal. The blue glow of the liquid ore pooled there lit his eyes with cold fire, made his angled elven features look distant, strange. The contrast with the mousy girl Sam had cut down could not be greater. Kurt was perfectly composed and dignified, and if he was afraid it showed nowhere.<p>

Sam felt his gut clench with unutterable fear as his heart clenched with admiration, with unutterable desire. He held his sword steady. He could not be tempted, he could not be swayed. Not by those eyes, not by those high, proud cheekbones, not by the blush in Kurt's porcelain skin nor by those hands, whose fingertips rested lightly against the very tip of the pedestal – not by his regal carriage nor his elegant long stride. Not by anything.

His hands tightened around his sword hilt.

"Do you hate mages?" Kurt said suddenly, his voice as cool and distant as though he were already far away, lost in the Fade where Sam would never, could never waking walk. He lifted long, thick lashes. Power enough to crumble a city, and its vessel stood with eyes expectant on Sam. What was he expecting, what did he want?

Sam stared back without answering, his throat dry. Sam could sense Kurt's magic all around him like a winter wind, like thorns and ivy (Sam wondered how long it had been since Kurt had seen ivy, felt wind); it dissolved like sugared ice on his tongue, it wove and swooped all around him like a flock of doves, it sent all his Templar senses to singing.

The song was one of warning. Sam wondered if Kurt heard a song, too.

He licked his lips. There was a faint glow to Kurt's eyes, lyrium light. "I don't hate you," Sam whispered, his fingers aching with the grip he kept on his sword.

"Ah," Kurt barely breathed, and his blue-washed lips curved. He shut his eyes and bowed his head, his long neck a slice of white against his robes and hair. Sam knew why, but –

"I don't want to do this." His voice was choked.

Kurt's voice was not. "You have to."

With every step Sam took along the line that led him to Kurt, his heart sank until he might as well have been treading upon it. Sam's sword caught moonlight as he raised it, ready to swing. His helm was full of stale air.

"You have to be ready to kill me," Kurt said, and his long pale fingers touched the pool of lyrium, sending silvery ripples across the surface.

For the space of a held breath there was silence – then Kurt's slender body erupted just as the apprentice's had, twisted knotted ropes of flesh splitting his robes, the delicate wintry feel of Kurt's magic turned foul and corrupt.

Before the demon could pour fully through, Sam swung.

He jerked awake, his heart hammering, to find that his cheeks were wet with tears. He scrubbed them away in the dark, his breath hitching.


	5. Chapter 4

**4.**

"You asked to see me?" Sam said with apprehension, standing at attention in the doorway of the small office. Knight-Sergeant Schuester was polishing a shoulder pauldron, but immediately turned halfway to face him, putting down the small rag and offering Sam a crooked smile.

"I did. Don't worry, this is informal, you're not in trouble or anything. Shut the door and take a seat, Evans."

Sam did so, little eased by Schuester's reassurance. As though sensing Sam's discomfort, Schuester cut straight to the chase. "I hear you have trouble sleeping lately."

"I..." Sam began, but faltered, unwilling to lie. Shame colored his cheeks as he looked down at his boots. He was off-duty, dressed simply in breeches and a linen shirt with no mighty armor to hide in. "It doesn't interfere with my duty, sir."

Not yet, anyway.

"What's wrong?" Schuester asked simply.

Truth was, nightmares were plaguing Sam, dreams every night since that poor girl's tragic Harrowing. He felt guilt enough for his weakness, guilt enough for not even being able to remember her name, but she wasn't in his dreams. Kurt was instead, and Sam killed him in all of them, and woke weeping.

It was stupid, foolish. Kurt hadn't spoken to him since their talk in the library, sweeping past him in the hallways with an air of wounded elegance, and it might well be Kurt's death if Sam spoke of it.

Kurt wasn't Harrowed, after all, and First Enchanter Figgins was a cautious man. An apprentice appearing night after night in a Templar's dreams, driving him to distraction, impeding his ability to perform in the course of his Maker-given work... such an apprentice might easily be accused of infiltrating dreams through forbidden blood magic. And such an apprentice could not be elevated to the status of a full mage, nor thrown to the Fade, easy work for a demon to possess.

First Enchanter Figgins was not a fan of extra work, like an investigation, or any proof, and while Knight-Commander Goolsby was a legend on the battlefield, a whirlwind of force and might, he cared extremely little for bureaucracy. If Sam told the Knight-Sergeant about his dreams, and Schuester reported it as was his holy duty, Kurt would be given the Rite of Tranquility.

The idea of those bright, compelling eyes gone blank and empty was unbearable. It took only that thought, and Sam was abruptly certain of his course. Sam looked Schuester in the face, right in his concerned hazel eyes. "Just can't seem to sleep, sir," he said flatly. "It's nothing."

Schuester looked at Sam skeptically a long moment, and Sam held his gaze, hoping that the lie held. Schuester wasn't known to be the most perceptive man in the Tower, and the moment passed, the knight-sergeant's lips twitching with sympathy.

"It's that Harrowing from two weeks past, isn't it?"

Sam's gaze flickered, his lips parting slightly, and Schuester nodded once. "Yeah," Schuester said softly, taking a seat as well. He spread his feet wide, leaning forward seriously, hands clasped between his knees. "I heard about that one. I'm not surprised you're having some trouble working through it. I wouldn't have picked it for anyone's first Harrowing, that's for sure. Evans, do you mind if I give you some advice?"

Sam shook his head mutely.

"I know that before coming to the Circle, you must have been warned about the mages a thousand times. What sort of things did they tell you?"

Sam frowned a little, unsure what kind of answer Schuester was looking for. He pushed the ever-present image of Kurt deep away, the frustration and deep anger sparking in those expressive eyes, because nothing he'd been told about mages had prepared him for Kurt. "Never to upset the mages, I guess."

"What else?"

"Well, the usual, I mean..." Sam's brows furrowed. "I was raised in the Chantry. Training to be a Templar wasn't much different from that, aside from the weapon training. Magic is a curse, it's a sign of the Maker's disfavor. It's the mages' fault He ever turned away from us in the first place. It's our duty to see them contained where they won't be a danger to regular Maker-fearing folk, and it's our duty to see them dead if they do become a danger."

"Right." Schuester let out a sigh and leaned forward. "Look. Everything the Chantry says is true, of course. Mages _are_a danger. But they never explain how hard it is sometimes to look at their lives, and how different they are from ours, and keep the necessary... distance."

Sam stared at Schuester with the same sort of blank look he wore whenever he didn't feel like volunteering answers during training, a protective expression of inoffensive simplicity. "I'm afraid I don't follow," Sam said carefully.

"Mages are people," Schuester said emphatically, brandishing a pedantic finger. "They have the same bones, the same muscles and tissues as any of us – and Maker knows," he added with dark humor, "they have blood. They have the same desire for freedom as any Fereldan. But they _cannot have it,_Evans." Schuester met Sam's eyes soberly. "I've wrestled with this a long time, in my prayers. I've asked the Maker why it must be this way. And I truly cannot see any other way the world _could_be. The mages are a danger. Think of the girl cut down two weeks past, think of the creature she became. Think of that abomination rampaging through the Circle, cutting down women, children, trained Enchanters – think of it released on a countryside full of innocent people!" Schuester ran a hand over his close-cropped curls and leaned back in his seat again. "You've heard the stories same as anyone, I'm sure."

"I don't quite understand why you're telling me all this," Sam said, feeling a fine tremor through his hands that lay limply upon his lap.

"Because you need to hear it," said Schuester, summoning a smile despite the specter haunting his eyes. "I'm allowed to care, aren't I?"

"Of... of course, sir."

"And it's something I had a hard time with. I wanted to share that understanding with you. I hope it eases the burden of what happened."

Sam bit the inside of his cheek, nodding silently, overlong hair falling into his eyes.

"You'll want that trimmed, son," said Schuester with a smile. "And if you need someone to discuss these matters with—"

_I'll keep my own vigil,_Sam didn't say. "Thank you," he said with a polite nod of his head, and took his leave.

Perhaps he ought take that vigil now, he thought uneasily. There was considerable truth in what the knight-sergeant had said, but – something in his words did not sit will with Sam. Neatly, Schuester's speech had avoided the issue of the mages themselves, but Sam could not so easily brush them away.

Surely, the souls held within these walls were just as precious to the Maker as the ones without. The life of a mage was one of unceasing wariness, a life without trust, where dreams were the most dangerous escape of all; Sam's training had been clear enough on the dangers of a mage's mere existence. Guarding the most spiritually vulnerable people in Ferelden from having their souls knocked about some demon's gizzard had drawn Sam to this vocation in the first place.

But the apprentices weren't even told about the substance of the Harrowing, roused instead from their beds at dark hours and hustled up to the Chamber to win or face the most utter destruction imaginable. _Kurt_ didn't know, Sam realized, a hot prickling feeling clenching like a fist in his chest. He didn't know, and it was forbidden to tell him.

That girl erupted into abomination before Sam's mind's eye, slight and small and devoured by grotesque ropes of flesh. Hers was a soul lost, Sam thought, swallowing hard – a soul thrown to the demons in a merciless gamble and lost. And that was simply the way of the world. And that was what Sam had vowed to uphold.

He thought of Kurt's blue eyes in the darkened library, turned wistfully towards a bricked-up window, skin like a wasted blossom, pale from lack of sun. A soul would starve like that, Sam thought. His own surely would without the promise of the sun strewn like diamonds on water, ladybugs like studded rubies across summer grass, clouds painted white across the canvas sky. Sam had come to this vocation to be a hero, to participate actively in his own salvation, to wage battles with stakes far higher than those of battles fought by earthly lords – not a Chantry orphan any longer, but a true knight, silver and shining, who could look upon himself with pride.

But when Kurt had asked him to show his face when he spoke his mind, Sam had had no answer.

Outside Schuester's office, Hudson was waiting with an anxious look in his eyes. Sam gave him a boggled look as he passed and Hudson fell into step with him, abbreviating his gargantuan strides for Sam's sake. It struck some deep-buried chord of annoyance with Sam, though he gave another polite nod without showing it.

"Yes?" Sam prompted, after his cool greeting did nothing to dissuade Hudson from walking by him.

"How did it go?"

Sam raised an eyebrow at his friend, muttering, "Well enough..."

"You don't have to look at me like that, you know," Hudson said with a slightly affronted wrinkle of his brow. "I'm just looking out for you."

Sam was struck by an instant, unpleasant thrill as his eyes widened. "Wait, did _you_speak to Schuester?"

"Well, I said I'd look out for you, didn't I?" Hudson said with the trademark lopsided smile that had drawn Sam in without Sam even understanding the whys and wheretofores.

If Sam had to suppress the urge to punch him for the concern all over his face, well, that was between him and the Maker. Sam's breath left him in a troubled sigh. "How did you know I had trouble sleeping?"

"I rise with the sun." Hudson's eyes were the warm brown of Antivan caffè, guileless and easy to read. So different from Kurt's, the thought came out of nowhere. "Sometimes earlier. And after that Harrowing I tried to keep an eye on you. It isn't easy, Evans, you know? It isn't like they tell us when we train."

Sam clenched his jaw without speaking.

"But we're their guardians," Hudson pressed. "We protect them. We protect them the very best way we know how. And we do that by adhering to the rules the Chantry has set for us, by remaining alert and attentive at all times, by minding our souls and their own, and by keeping them all gathered safely together."

"Stopped up in here," Sam felt the need to point out.

"'Stopped up in here?'" Hudson echoed at once, narrowing his eyes. "You _have _been talking to them, haven't you?"

A jolt of panic ran through Sam. Now was not the time for Hudson to practice his uncanny perceptiveness. "I adhere to the rules of the Chantry!" Sam snapped without meaning to, and Hudson's eyebrows flew up as he visibly recoiled. If regret were an icy pool, Sam felt instantly and deeply plunged in one. "I'm sorry." He forced himself to take a calming breath. "But I do. I fought the creature just as you did—"

"You hesitated," Hudson pointed out.

Sam barely resisted snarling. "For a moment—"

"And if Puck had died because of your hesitation? If I had? If the Senior Enchanter had?" Hudson said skeptically. "You would stand here and tell me it was just a moment?"

"No, but—"

"Evans, there are _no_buts." Hudson's lips formed a small thin line. "We're the strong sword arm of the Chantry, not its head. And if we hesitate when we're meant to strike, the price _will_be great, exacted on our _souls_, for failing our charge." Hudson eyed Sam narrowly. "You understand that, don't you?"

"I will never break my vow," Sam said stiffly. He managed to wrench a smile out of his features. It felt wretched and strange. "Thank you for your concern, brother. I should go. You've given me much to think about."

"I'm glad," said Hudson, though his tone was wary, anything but glad. Sam merely ducked his head and murmured an excuse before veering away.


	6. Chapter 5

**5. **

"If I never have to do another one of these Maker-forsaken twelve-hour shifts," Puck groaned, his head thumping back against the wall. Puck forewent the helm of his uniform, as many of the longer-established Templars did, but Sam couldn't help but feel that the helm might have protected Puck from the incredible grimace of pain that immediately crossed his face.

"You find a way of keeping the mages from wanting out, then," Sam replied. He felt no less irritable about it than Puck, but faced the prospect with decidedly more pragmatism. "It's almost over."

"Three hours, almost over? I have shit to _do_, Evans. People to see."

"Hudson doesn't count, he's the whole reason we're doing double duty in the first place."

Puck scoffed, ill-disguising his envy as he said, "Then Ser High-and-Mighty Runaway-Seeker can hardly be who I plan to see, can he?"

There was no one to see in the Tower except for other Templars, considering how discouraged they were from speaking to the mages more than necessary, and because they already ate and bunked together, they tired of each other's company easily. Puck in particular was rambunctious and belligerent, furious at being retained at the Circle for an extra year, and got along with few of his fellow Templars. Hudson was a rare exception, as they'd known each other prior to entering the Order.

Sam had gravitated towards Hudson and Puck naturally. Puck was irreverent – insisted on being referred to by the abbreviation of his noble house, as he was its gravest shame, he swore – but he made Sam laugh, and Hudson was good-natured and kind, if occasionally and infuriatingly sanctimonious. Hudson's good intentions couldn't be doubted, anyway.

But Hudson was out of the Tower for now, specially selected to assist Knight-Sergeant Schuester in the safe return of yet another runaway mage, leaving Sam and Puck to take up his slack with extended shifts. Puck was beyond antsy, even for him. "So, then... who do you plan to see?" said Sam, humoring his friend's poor temper.

Puck didn't respond at first, shifting from foot to foot like a child about to be scolded by their nan. "Whoever it was, I didn't plan to make them wait three extra hours," Puck finally said with a giant irritated huff. He glanced both ways down the long curving corridors. "By Andraste's left _teat_, if that poncy elf brat doesn't –"

He ceased abruptly in his agitation as he caught sight of someone down the corridor, clenching a fist by his side. "_Yes_," he hissed.

Sam stood in congealed confusion, because Kurt was walking down the corridor as though he owned every cobblestone blessed by the soles of his boots, with a sort of regal long-limbed surety that was absolutely compelling. Kurt's eyes lingered over Sam's armored form for a suspicious moment before they widened, then narrowed. Kurt's precocious air of self-possession took on an abrupt, bewildering tinge of injury as Kurt turned to face Puck. "She'll wait," he announced.

"You're sure?" Puck asked roughly, drawing a hand over his scalp. He looked both haggard and immensely relieved, his hazel eyes puppy-hopeful. "She said so?"

"Mind you, she's not delighted about it," Kurt said dryly, "but I interceded on your behalf. Lucky you."

"That's my poncy elf brat!" Puck grinned suddenly, a broad cut of white in his swarthy face, clapping Kurt on the shoulder.

Kurt grimaced delicately, easing out of Puck's gauntleted grip with a prissy muttered "_if_ you don't mind." Sam snorted to himself, watching how gracefully Kurt moved even as he sidled away, his deep blue robes swinging about his feet.

"And you'll keep the watch for us?" Puck asked, as though he already knew the answer.

"Haven't I all this time?" Kurt's nostrils flared as he released a breath, looking wryly over his shoulder in Puck's direction. Puck chuckled lightly, raising a hand in a vague half-salute.

"All right, what is this about?" Sam broke in. He knew it was awkward, knew that whatever Puck and Kurt were talking about it wasn't related to him, but he wasn't _furniture_.

Kurt rotated on the spot, an elegant full-body twist, brows lifted and blue-green-blue eyes cool and haughty enough to penetrate Sam's armor. The hem of his robes flared with his spin, just as indignantly as the mage they contained. "A private affair."

Sam stared at him, uncertain why on earth Kurt should suddenly act as though they'd only ever exchanged two words before, and those hostile. "Between mage and Templar," he drawled. "Right."

"It's nothing to do with _me_, I'm just the messenger," Kurt said sharply. Defensively, Sam thought with increasing consternation, looking at the wide-eyed glare Kurt was throwing Puck's way. "And he doesn't wish to speak of it. Does he."

"Sam's all right, Kurt," Puck replied with a shrug. The smile he wore was only barely uncertain, filled with a sincerity Sam was entirely unused to seeing from the other Templar. "And we need his help, anyway."

"Er." Sam hoped his earnest confusion was transmitting properly through the shadow of his visor. "In what, exactly?"

Kurt's sharp look of warning had not lessened in the slightest, but Puck waved Kurt off impatiently, looking at Sam. "Listen. Tonight, half a candlemark past the end of our shift, can you meet me at the chapel?"

"...What... for?"

Kurt huffed a disbelieving breath, crossing his arms.

"Oh, come on, Kurt," Sam protested, his voice less angry than he'd thought it would be, more pleading. Kurt's lips pursed and he gazed up at the ceiling rather than at either Templar, gesturing jerkily that they ought both continue their discussion, hip jutted out.

"I can't explain here," said Puck, lowering his voice. Sam dragged his gaze away from Kurt's furious posture. "Or anywhere. Meet me at the chapel. Please."

Sam eyed Puck warily. Kurt gave a sound of disgust, leveling a look of near-betrayal at Puck. "I sincerely hope you cleared this with her, or you'll have some excuses to make tonight. But as you've made up your mind to do as you pleased, I see no reason to stand around in the presence of a _moron_ and a—"

He cut himself off abruptly, pinching his lips together as his gaze sliced across Sam's visor. Without finishing his sentence, Kurt whirled upon them both and stalked away down the curved corridor.

Sam watched him go. What the _hell_, he thought as he watched Kurt leave, but somehow, his injured confusion got caught up in watching the way Kurt walked, the glide of those long legs and the way his movements made his robes swing, the golden rope of his belt slung low about his hips and shifting slightly with each step, the dip at the small of Kurt's back. That dip, the way his robes clung to his lithe form... standard apprentice robes weren't like that, weren't form-fitted or flattering that way, so Sam wondered if Kurt had altered them somehow and decided immediately that he _must_ have, some cunning, careful alteration that made enough of a difference to be notable without getting caught.

Clever, he thought, all admiration for a moment despite his bewilderment over Kurt's strange behavior, clever, and by the time Sam noticed Puck staring at him, Kurt had swept around the corner, long gone.

"You," said Puck in a tone of unholy delight that immediately set every single hair on Sam's head bristling in warning. He tore his thoughts from contemplation of Kurt's behavior _or_ wardrobe as he met Puck's gaze. "You."

"Yes, 'tis I," said Sam, briefly dipping into low, unctuous tones before returning to his normal voice. "What do you want, Puckerman?"

"_You_..." A satisfied grin split Puck's face. Sam immediately wished to do likewise, with a longsword.

"That's against regulations," Sam informed Puck.

By the look that crossed Puck's face, that hadn't at all been on Puck's mind, but he laughed, a great big laugh that had him clutching his armored belly. "No, no, no." He lowered his voice, leaning forward conspiratorially. "You like him, don't you?" His brows wagged up and down. "That one."

"Well enough," Sam said cautiously.

"Right, and the ass you just watched for twenty minutes doesn't hurt," Puck barked, wiping his eyes.

"I—"

"Sam." Puck managed to calm himself, straightening, though his eyes still sparkled with mirth. Sam stood perfectly tall, gritting his teeth against Puck's mockery. "I'm the best Templar in the entire world you could have watched that brat talk and swish and sway in front of, all right? Trust me. The chapel."

"There wasn't—"

"You want him and it's obvious," Puck interrupted. "Extremely obvious. Keep your eyes off him if you want to keep your secret, you look like Andraste about to jump on the Maker's lap. Three and a half hours, Evans."

Grateful Puck couldn't see the tomato red of his cheeks, Sam gave one nod and forced himself to lean casually against the wall. For his laughter, Sam returned Puck silence for the remainder of the shift.


	7. Chapter 6

**6. **

Sam headed towards the chapel at the appointed hour, dragging all his pounds of armor with him because he hadn't had enough time after the end of his shift to divest himself of it. Sam was exhausted, and whatever Puck and Kurt and some unknown female third party were colluding on, it was clearly nothing a good Templar wanted to be caught up in. He ignored the thrill of intrigue and interest that the very idea of Kurt's involvement sent through him as he headed towards the door of the chapel anyway.

The door creaked open as he walked towards it to reveal half of Kurt's face, his white skin a striking contrast to the mahogany of the wood. "Sam," he said, his blue eyes flicking up to meet Sam's without expression as he pushed the door open further. "Good. Come in."

"I'm going to kill Puck," Sam muttered as he entered the chapel, Kurt shutting the door firmly behind him. "A twelve-hour shift, and now—"

"Try not to judge your fellow man for half a bloody moment and listen to what he has to say," Kurt said dryly.

"Hey!" Sam protested, but he was distracted as Kurt waved a hand before the door, mirroring the arch where it was set into the wall as though he were limning an echo of that curve before him. Like wind chimes made of spun-sugar icicles, Kurt's power brushed cool and delicate against Sam's Templar senses, and Sam could almost see the wispy lines of a glyph glow briefly in the ancient wooden door. "—What are you doing?" he finished, not at all as he'd meant to.

"Don't worry about it."

The chapel was abandoned at this late hour – past Kurt's curfew as an apprentice, Sam noted – and before Sam could quiz Kurt further, Puck strode forward in plain clothes, beaming, to clasp Sam's gauntleted hand. Behind him approached one of the Chantry sisters, a young woman named Quinn whom Sam had met when he initially arrived at the Tower. She possessed an intimidating perfection of feature with an air of stern reserve to match, her golden hair caught behind her in a demure linen caul.

"Sam," Puck said grandly, gesturing towards the sister as she stopped by Puck's side. Tonight, her preternatural reserve was tempered by guarded uncertainty; she worried her lower lip as she met Sam's eyes directly. "I want you to meet Quinn."

"I've met Sister Quinn before," Sam said with some confusion, though she extended her hand regally for him to shake anyway. It was so small and thin in his gauntleted hand that he barely dared squeeze back.

"Just Quinn, please," she said quietly. She glanced up at Puck as her hand dropped to her side. Puck smiled down at her, his expression warm.

"He knows," Puck said to her, his voice more tender than Sam had ever heard it before. "Sam is my brother-in-arms, a true friend – we have nothing to fear."

Sam felt his face heat up as he smiled; he considered them friends, but it was very moving to be described in such a manner aloud and to know that Puck considered him just as much a friend. He was glad the flush of pleasure on his face was hidden from the incorrigible Templar's view.

"The fewer people know, the better," Quinn replied skeptically. Her posture was rigid, as though a spine of steel kept her at her dignified full height constantly; her thin shoulders were tense. "This is ruinous enough without the risk of drawing someone else in."

"I can't do it all, Quinn." Sam startled at Kurt's approach, though the young mage didn't look at him as he took his place at Sam's side. "Especially not with my Harrowing coming up at any moment. You know I've done and will continue to do all I can."

Quinn bit her lip unhappily, lashes sweeping against her cheek. "I know," she whispered with a bleak look of strained gratitude Kurt's way. Kurt's expression softened with worry.

"I _don't _know," Sam broke in, though he felt seized by a creeping, dreadful certainty, like ivy. "Puck – as honored as I am, I don't think I _want_to know —"

"_Sam_," Puck said. For all that he was the miscreant scion of his house, tossed to the Templars in an attempt to redeem his noble name, his voice held command. Sam jerked his chin up, and Puck's voice softened slightly. "Please."

"Sword of Mercy, Puck, you didn't even tell him before you brought him here?" said Quinn incredulously, her nostrils flaring. She pinched her lips together and pressed her fingers to the bridge of her nose, taking a deep breath before raising her head to look at Sam. "If Puck speaks for you, then I will speak to you truly, though I _implore_ you to keep silence."

"I can't rightly promise such a thing," Sam said, swallowing hard at the look of betrayal Puck threw him. "Not without understanding the nature of the matter."

"It is ruinous—"

"It isn't," Puck said, looking at Quinn anxiously. "You say that, but it isn't."

"It is ruinous to me." For the first time the Chantry sister's eyes shone with tears. Sam watched her warily in case she wept, but the sister's iron control won out. She took another breath, her voice steady, if quiet. "For six months, Puck and I have carried on an affair, conducted in the utmost secrecy, of course."

This was scarcely news, from the way Quinn leaned into his side and the warmth that transformed Puck's face when he looked at her. Sam could imagine the well-traveled road down which this tale would go. He said a little desperately, "You needn't tell me even so much. I won't tell a soul what you've said, but — please, I don't want to know this."

"We need help!" Quinn's lips pressed together, her trembling hands smoothing her robes by her side. "Ser Samuel, I don't know you well, but if Puck treats you as a brother I have no choice but to trust you, for I have no sisters here. I beg you to hear us. We have no one else."

"If I had anyone else," Puck added softly, "if I could tell that blockhead Hudson or even the Knight-Sergeant, I would not lay this on you, brother; but if you will not help then _I_ will speak." Puck looked hard at Sam with a meaningful raise of his brow, tilting his head in Kurt's direction.

That wiped any lingering trace of a smile off Sam's face. Silence hung tensely in the chapel like a single spider on a single thread before Kurt apparently took Puck's gesture as an invitation to speak.

"Quinn and I have been friends since she arrived at the Tower these two years past," Kurt said without preamble. "I don't always... _agree_," he said with a wry quirk of his brow at her, "with her conclusions, but nonetheless, we are friends. She maintains the illusion that her debates will save my heathen elven soul—"

"Someone has to try," Quinn interrupted, lips twitching in the ghost of a smile, "lest you _never_see the Maker's light."

"I'm a mage, Quinnie. When I'm Harrowed I'll be right there in the Maker's neighborhood, strolling through the Fade, and I have every confidence I won't find him."

Kurt's teasing provocation worked; the young sister rose to the bait, her large eyes flashing. "Because He doesn't deem any of us worthy yet, especially not an insolent little apprentice mageling—"

Kurt held up a finger at her. "Must you make it personal, darling? _Must_you?"

Though Quinn snorted, she appeared to draw some life from the exchange. Puck slung an arm about her shoulders, drawing her in, while Sam, who was standing awkwardly beside Kurt, shifted on his feet as though he _hadn't _seen the young mage die nightly in his dreams for the past two weeks.

"Anyway." Kurt clasped his hands in front of him with a brisk exhalation of air. "The point is, unlikely as it may seem, Quinn and I are good friends. I was one of the first people to know about her assignations with Puckerman here."

"You weren't happy about it at first," Puck said with a sly grin.

"I'm still not. You're both idiots," Kurt returned sharply, and Puck's grin wilted slightly as Quinn took on a look of faint offense. "Oh, please. Both of you know what I mean."

"You aren't my nan. Furthermore, you're never going to finish the damned tale. I am with child," Quinn said simply. "By Kurt's reckoning I am three weeks along."

"_Three weeks?_" Sam repeated, not knowing at whom to stare in horror first. He settled on staring at Puck, whose hand had come up to brush a tendril of Quinn's hair back over the shell of her ear. "But — that's rather early to be able to tell anything, isn't it?"

"Thank you, goatherd," Kurt replied. His tone was acidic even given his usual manner of speaking; Sam recoiled, looking over at him, but Kurt met his gaze unflinchingly. "I am a _mage,_ and while the healing arts are not my chosen discipline, it is a simple enough question to answer. Quinn suspected, she asked me to check, and she was right. Now, as we caught this... this _situation _early, there are a number of _remedies_—"

"No," Quinn said immediately. Kurt rolled his eyes. "You may make all the faces you like, Kurt. Absolutely not. There is no choice; we must leave before we are discovered."

With a growing sense of horror, Sam stared between all three of them. His offense at Kurt's brusque treatment of him would have to wait. "You couldn't ask the Knight-Commander—"

"Think for half a second, Sam," Puck said, his tone caught between entreaty and bitter frustration. "You really see Goolsby giving a damn? That pompous ass thinks _gallant _is when a horse runs fast. And Schuester? He thinks he wrote the bloody Chant. We tell anyone, and this is what happens. I'm thrown out of the Templars, my name blackened, sent home to join the local guard with all the other lordly spares and disowned by my family when the lyrium sickness hits and leaves me useless. Quinn is defrocked and sent home in disgrace, and she has our child, and my babe is given to the Chantry as though no one ever gave a damn—" Puck snorted, disgust twisting his features. "No."

"But your names will be blackened anyway," Sam said. "You'll lose it all _anyway_—"

"Not the babe," Puck said.

"Nor each other." Quinn looked up at Puck and released a breath, love filtered through the sound with wryness and determination. She reached out for Puck's other hand, their fingers intertwining. "We do have time," Quinn said, turning her gaze from Puck to Sam, "to decide our plan of action. But if we're to run, I'd prefer to do so _before_ I'm—" She paused a moment, before she said in a tone of suffused revulsion, "_ungainly_."

"You won't be," Puck said instantly, squeezing her shoulders. "You won't ever be."

Quinn smiled wanly without response, and the four of them stood in silence for a moment before Kurt's eyes widened. "A moment," he said, quickly walking back towards the door to press his ear against it. They all turned to watch him go, the dreadful reality of Puck's situation sinking into Sam like an anchor to the floor of the sea.

"Puck, I — I understand, and I'm honored by your trust," Sam said, every word feeling like a stone dropped from his lips, heavy and clumsy. "You have my word I won't speak of this. But I don't know what you want me to _do_."

"There are going to be times I need you to cover me," Puck said. "To make my excuses when my lady needs me, to help her when I can't avoid whatever small stupid task they've stuck me with in any given week. Things Kurt can't help with, Templar things. And when we run — lyrium, Sam. It's going to be an issue."

"Maker's breath, Puck, you want me to funnel you lyrium?" Quite aside from the fact that the last thing Sam had ever illegally smuggled was a bit of ham to bed with him at age eight, lyrium was a strictly-rationed commodity under the direct control of the Chantry. Sam hadn't the faintest idea how to even _begin_ getting a hold of lyrium, let alone the specially-processed kind the Templars took, _let alone _enough enough to satisfy the daily need of a Templar on the run. "Are you insane? Are you aware how many different kinds of illegal that is?"

"No," Puck snapped, "I'm not. I had no clue. Thanks for the information." He sagged for a moment, squeezing his eyes shut before opening them once more, his gaze hard. "I can't ask Finn, Sam, you know I can't. He'd turn me in thinking he was saving everyone involved, like it's that damned easy. And..."

Puck's gaze shifted its focus over Sam's shoulder, and Sam followed it to where Kurt was walking back towards them, brushing his hands off on his robes. "Nothing," Kurt said, "false alarm," and Puck's eyes met Sam's, deadly serious. Sam's jaw clenched; he got the warning, even if he had to bite back a snarl over it.

"You don't have to do that," Sam muttered instead, because in the face of what Puck and Quinn were preparing to do, Sam couldn't say he wouldn't have seized on anything he could to compel assistance, too. But he liked to think that he wouldn't stoop to blackmail, especially of a _brother, _especially when there wasn't anything... happening. It wasn't like Kurt knew, or could know, or felt anything in return, or would even if he knew. "You have my help already, whatever that's worth."

He was already on thin ice since Hudson had gone and opened his damned helpful mouth to Knight-Sergeant Schuester, for no good reason since Sam had done _nothing _but suffer a few bad dreams. The last thing Sam wanted was Kurt's name to be linked to that. He thought of the dull, blank eyes of the Tranquil and glanced down at Kurt, who returned him a wary and curious look. Tranquil mages never had that look.

"Anyway," Quinn said, her quiet voice drawing attention regardless for diction precise enough to match Kurt's, "Puck and I need to speak privately. Kurt, if you could—"

"The wards have been set since I walked through the door, dear," he assured her. "No one will walk past without my knowing it."

"All right." Quinn gave the ghost of a smile, looking up (and up and up) at Sam. "Sam, I'm sorry to put this on you. Thank you for listening. Please, swear you won't say anything."

"I swear, Sister," Sam said with a deep nod of his head, and raised his head only to see Quinn wincing.

"Just... Quinn. Please," she said, and Sam grimaced behind the steel wall of his helm. "Till we meet again."

She drew Puck away with her, and the two of them retreated behind the screens separating the chancel from the nave, leaving Kurt and Sam standing alone before the rows and rows of pews. Kurt stared after them for a moment, his brow creased.

"I didn't know you were such good friends with Puck," Sam said into the silence. "And a Chantry sister, as well. I would never have thought it."

"I was friends with Quinn first. Probably the only friend she's got," Kurt said, bringing a hand up to his chin, fingers pressed thoughtfully against his lips. "She's a very ambitious person, as am I. Now she's gone and fallen for this lunk, and what a mess they're in... there's no accounting for taste, but."

Sam waited, but Kurt didn't add anything. "But what?" he prompted.

Kurt's lips twisted a little as his gaze flicked up towards Sam. "Just thinking. The Chantry tries with all its might to regulate the heart along with the soul. Who may speak to whom, love whom, as though our strata make any difference to the Maker, as though he'll miraculously come out of his almighty hidey-hole if we divide ourselves just right. Even if I think they're fools for this, they have as much right to their foolishness as any other couple. The dwarven Carta has less criminal instincts."

Sam wanted to argue the point, but he could hardly pretend that the Chantry wouldn't come down on the two lovers like the blade that split Andraste's mortal neck open. And he didn't really know anything about the dwarven whatever, anyway. He headed towards a nearby pew instead, taking a seat. The wood groaned under the weight of his armor. He stared at the rusty maroon of the cloth skirt he wore as part of his uniform, the dull gold stars, the lumps beneath it of the poleyns strapped over his knees.

What a situation.

Soft footsteps drew his attention as Kurt took a few steps forward. "Do you plan to stay?" Kurt asked briskly, impersonally.

"Do you?"

"Well, I have to," Kurt said with a shrug. "I'm the one keeping watch for them, and I need Puck to walk me back to the dormitory or I'll get in trouble for being about after curfew."

Sam nodded and looked down at his hands, encased in Templar silverite. His armor was made to wield swords against magic, against mages. Every day when he rose he took a substance made to give him an edge in a battle that never ended.

"Why are you upset with me?" Sam asked without meaning to, the words quiet, less angry than he'd have made them had he meant to say them. He sounded pathetic, he thought to himself, like a scorned schoolboy, and something hot tightened in his chest in unhappy anticipation.

"Who says I'm upset?" Kurt looked taken aback, crossing his arms over his chest. "I'm not _upset_."

"Did I do something to offend you?" Sam pressed, raising his head, since he'd already opened his giant mouth anyway. "I thought — I mean, we've had perfectly civil conversations, Kurt, and I thought they were interesting, I — don't understand why you've been so, so..."

His shoulders hunched under his heavy armor. He was tired, he thought. A twelve hour shift, and now he was faced with this on the tail end of his daily lyrium dose's usefulness. He felt muddled and weary, and his conversations with Kurt had become spots of color in a life of scheduled sameness very quickly. "I really liked when we talked."

Kurt was staring at him, his initial air of outraged offense softening into some wary middle between uncertainty and — something else. "You were one of the Templars at that girl's Harrowing, weren't you?"

Sam closed his eyes. Of course, he thought. Of course it would be this. "What... was her name?"

"She's dead. What does it matter?" Sam opened his eyes again. Kurt was already porcelain-pale, but in the moonlight he looked literally white as paper, his eyes burning blue. "She was only an abomination. You cut her down."

"That's my _job_, Kurt—"

"That's the _problem._"

Sam huffed out a pained breath. "I was reprimanded, did you know that? Because I didn't strike fast enough. Someone else took the final blow. And now _you're_ chastising me because I struck at all. I can't exactly win here, can I? She was gone. She'd become an abomination. There was no saving her."

"I have _my_ Harrowing soon," Kurt replied. He heaved a deep breath, pressing his lips together as he stared off past Sam's head. "Soon I'll know if I'm to be given the chance to become a full mage at all, or if they'll decide I'm too much trouble, if they'll just make me Tranquil, instead—"

The nightmare of those blue eyes turned blank and obedient, never angry or sad or thoughtful or kind ever again, flashed before Sam's vision. He spoke instantly, without thinking. "That isn't going to happen."

"You don't know that." Kurt looked at him uncertainly, for a moment seeming horribly young. "Do you?"

"I can't tell you when the Harrowing will happen, or what it entails, Kurt, but look, I've stuck my neck out far enough just by coming here tonight," Sam said, building speed as he spoke. His words came like a boulder rushing down a hill, faster and more reckless by the moment. "If they try to make you Tranquil, I'll see you out of here myself. I swear it."

Kurt's brows drew together, his lips parting. "_Why?"_he breathed, a hand curling against his chest.

"Because I was there when they cut that abomination down," Sam said, but shook his head instantly, because that wasn't _right _even if that was part of the whole truth. "Because she used to be a girl, and you're so — you're really — you're so fiery... It's a good thing," he hastened to add, tripping over his words. Kurt looked as though he wasn't sure whether to be flattered or further irritated, settling on a brow-furrowed expression of bewilderment. "I... have nightmares," and Sam hadn't meant to admit that either, "where they make you Tranquil, and they're horrible because you aren't _you_ anymore. I can't, I _couldn't _let that happen to you."

Kurt's eyes widened. "I show up in your _dreams?_" He shook his head and said insistently, "I'm not – I'm not _doing_ anything, I'm not –"

"I know you aren't doing forbidden magic." Kurt shut his mouth, staring at Sam in tremulous, mute appeal. "I'm not going to tell anyone, I'm as aware what would happen if I breathed a word of it as you are." Sam shook his head miserably. Nothing he meant to say was coming out properly. "That's not the point. I became a Templar because I wanted to help. To protect and serve people who needed it. You mages need it in a different, special way. More than anyone. And I don't see how maiming your souls helps you or anyone find their way to the Maker. You'll face your Harrowing same as anyone," even if Sam's stomach cramped with suffused panic at the idea of Kurt's Harrowing going as badly as that girl's had, "but don't be afraid of the Rite. It won't happen."

"I..."

Sam chuckled, though nothing was funny, and got to his feet with the creak of the wooden pew and the metallic shuffle of his armor plates. Kurt didn't move back, leaving them standing within each other's space. "I only meant to say that I guess I kind of miss you. Not all the rest of that."

"I'll — stop by more often, then," Kurt said, and he actually smiled, a gentle smile that lit his face, his lively, beautiful eyes, his pointed face tilted up just slightly towards Sam's. "I didn't know. I didn't mean to be a _nightmare _to you," he added, making a face. "I'm sorry."

"The only nightmare is that anything might happen to you that I could have prevented."

Kurt bit the inside of his lip, causing a pout, as he searched the shadow of Sam's visor, putting up his hand to touch the helm once more. This time, Sam didn't flinch. "You say that," Kurt complained lightly, "and do not let me see your face when you do. Not all Templars wear the helm, Puckerman never does." He ticked the metal. The sharp ring echoed in Sam's ear. "You see me in your dreams, and I haven't seen you at all. It's unfair."

"I have to wear it," Sam said awkwardly. As if Kurt's gaze weren't sharp enough to pierce through mere silverite massive armor, anyway. "Kurt, I – I need to pray. Will you watch for me?"

The irony of a Templar asking that of a mage didn't appear to escape Kurt, judging by the glimmer in his eyes, but Kurt gave a gracious nod. "Of course," Kurt said, dropping his hand to the ornamental curve of Sam's shoulder pauldron briefly before dropping it completely.

Sam wondered, as he walked to kneel heavily before the statue of Andraste, what that hand and that brief touch of comfort might feel like against his bare shoulder, knowing that Kurt's gaze followed him as he walked.


	8. Chapter 7

**warning**, this chapter is rated nc17 due to graphic sexual activity. enjoy ;)

**7.**

Sam is praying.

Through the thin Templar-issue undress breeches, the damp, cold stone of the Tower chapel is seeping slowly into his bones. Sam feels he has been kneeling half his life, but only recently have his prayers grown tinged with uncertainty. He prays for the simplicity of his old life, for the calm, assured serenity of knowing every day that he walks with Andraste's blessing in the Maker's light. Andraste's image stands impossibly tall above him, her nape curved in mercy he is sure he has not earned for the sins he has committed in his heart.

How can the Maker's light penetrate this Tower? It stands alone in empty waters, broken bridges radiating out from it like cracked arrows littering a watery battlefield. It is one single, ancient, weather-worn spire haunted by generations of ghosts: the Alamarri who built it and died in its defense, the Tevinter legions who died assaulting it, countless Templars consumed by abominations or murdered by maleficar. And the mages, of course, the mages who live and die here. The suicides — the windows of the Circle Tower are bricked up because the mages used to jump, long ago.

Sam wonders if that long, long fall was worth it to those mages, if the brief sight of the sun's riotous majesty glittering against black waters raised up their hearts as they breathed free air moments before taking that final step, if the wind through their hair felt like its own benediction as they briefly soared, and swiftly fell. He thinks that it must have.

He thinks of Kurt.

Though Sam's eyes are squeezed shut and the stones are hard against his knees, he thinks of Kurt's angled eyes, bright and coy beneath thick, long lashes. He thinks of Kurt's brisk and lively step, the rose in his pale cheeks that even years of confinement has not quite managed to wilt, the standard-issue robes Kurt has hemmed here and tucked there and made his own. He recalls in torturous detail the sling of Kurt's belt about his narrow hips and those long graceful fingers and that pink and shapely mouth whose sweet curve is its own sort of magic, and this is why Sam has sinned in his heart, because even when he prays his thoughts turn in forbidden ways to a mage whose vulnerable soul he is sworn to guard and protect.

Sam thinks of the mages who jumped.

He opens his eyes to stare up in entreaty at the graven image of Andraste, a long, stretched pillar of carved gray looming before him. As a boy, Sam had taken nothing but comfort from that image, content in the knowledge that the Bride of the Maker loved him as She loved all people, that She sang for him as She sang for everyone, a Chant in the Maker's ear, a plea for forgiveness. Humanity had sinned, it was true, humankind had struck Andraste down and betrayed Her, causing the Maker to turn away once and for all; but Andraste had forgiven even that. She believed in humankind, She believed in Sam, She believed in everyone, and through good deeds and an unfailing, faithful heart, Sam could hope one day to deserve Her mercy.

But he is faithless, Sam thinks, clenching his teeth, because of the doubt in his heart. The Chantry is the holy instrument of Andraste's will, and the Templars are the Chantry's sword arm, wielded in service of the Maker; and yet his heart is too tender for the hard work of the just, and it aches when he raises his sword.

Sam remembers the abomination he was too slow to cut down. She had been a girl, small and quiet, all mouse-brown hair and nervous hands; she became an abomination, soul rent and body transformed into something monstrous, but he couldn't stop seeing the girl and not the monster. He feels sorrow, not righteousness, recalling the slick boiling blood spattering in great hissing drops across the floor of the Harrowing Chamber, the twisted, deformed head rolling gape-mouthed to his feet. He should never have come to this place.

"Sam?" comes a clear voice, piercing the silence, and Sam turns his head in its direction. Kurt is seated at the ledge of an enormous stained-glass window. Depicted in glass behind him is Andraste's martyrdom, as familiar to Sam as the veins that run over the back of his hand. She is tied to the stake, flames frozen mid-leap around Her dignified figure, Archon Hessarion poised behind Her with the Sword of Mercy raised high. Fiery rays cut across the dark night that swallows most of the scene. Filtered through the stained glass, sunlight slants in warped and weird, bathing Kurt in dark blues and gritty umbre. His booted feet dangle high above the floor, and Sam has no idea how Kurt managed to climb up there.

"Kurt," Sam chokes out, stumbling to his feet. Kurt's legs are crossed at the knee, one foot elegantly pointed, and the young mage cocks his head, raising an eyebrow slowly. "Get down from there."

"That's really you, then, is it?" The intrigue dawning on Kurt's pointed face breaks into a full-fledged grin. It's bright and lovely and Sam forgets about Andraste's martyrdom as he gazes upon that mischievous look. Is there anything more dangerous than a mischievous mage? "You're beautiful."

Sam swallows hard, moving towards the window, staring up at Kurt in entreaty. "Come down from there," he repeats, "it's dangerous—"

"It's not dangerous at all," Kurt protests, laying a hand flat against the window behind him. At Sam's stricken look, he spreads both arms, palms to the glass. His is the silhouette of some seated prince, head high and proud, but his eyes remain lyrium-bright even in the shadows. "I can scarcely fall backwards through glass a foot thick."

Kurt's tone is quite sensible and reassuring. It does not assuage Sam's fears at all. Stories above Kurt's head, Andraste's pale face stares ecstatic into eternity. Kurt's hands span the flames.

"Kurt,_please_!" Sam is frantic with agitation. The mages used to jump. "Please just get down from there."

"Such concern," Kurt marvels, but if his tone is a little mocking, it isn't quite ungentle. He wraps his hands around the edge of the ledge and hesitates, casting a rueful look down. The window is set into the wall many feet higher than a man is tall.

Sam steps forward, holds up his arms and meets Kurt's eye. Kurt colors slightly, glancing away as he brushes his hair back over his forehead, then grips the ledge again. "Please," Sam repeats softly. He knows Kurt is right, that it's impossible for Kurt to even accidentally tumble from that window out the wrong side - at worst he might break a limb, twist an ankle falling onto the floor of the chantry - but the fear beats at him relentless and regardless.

The colors are so fey and strange, washing in twisting stripes along the cool gray floors. Kurt gives a soft sigh and scoots forward on the ledge. "You had better catch me," he warns lightly.

"I will."

Kurt falls, his robes flaring a brilliant blue about him as though he's gone and woven twilight into the embroidery. It all seems strangely slow, the bloom of his robes about his slender form, sunshine through Andraste's martyrdom in glass burnishing his figure in amber, ochre, rich russet. Fire.

Sam catches Kurt up tightly in his arms with scarcely a stagger, the mage is so slender. He smells sweet, like some sort of wild blossom faded in the pages of an old book, and Sam shudders as he holds him, rocked by his scent, by the solid physical presence of the mage in his arms when everything else feels strained and stretched and twisted, the light shifting and changing around them, the statue of Andraste so tall, too tall, the roof of the chapel impossibly high and gray and never-ending, everything gray but the colors of Andraste's martyrdom and the vivid blue of Kurt's crinkled, laughing eyes.

"Don't do that," Sam whispers, an arm around Kurt's waist, the other around his back, just beneath his shoulders. Their faces are too close, and there is no excuse for the way Sam is holding him, but Kurt isn't moving away, gazing into his eyes with fascination.

"You're really quite something," Kurt says softly, "beneath that helm." He leans in, touching their foreheads together, and Sam releases a small choked sound as his eyes fall shut, his grasp tightening. Within Sam's embrace, Kurt's hands reach up, and they're just as cool against Sam's face as Sam would have imagined, easing softly over his jaw, his cheekbones. Kurt's thumb darts over Sam's lip, and Sam opens his eyes uncertainly. The fascination in Kurt's eyes has yet to cease.

"As though your kindness weren't enough," Kurt says, and he sounds a little strangled, too, his eyes never leaving Sam's, "I had to picture you beautiful, too." He presses his lips to Sam's, his hands sliding down to cup the back of Sam's head, soft thumbs light against the pulse points beneath his jaw.

Sam has never kissed anyone before, and his lips part automatically with surprise. Kurt pursues his advantage, that clever, curling mouth tugging on Sam's lower lip, tracing a wet line within it. Kurt's lips are pliant and warm against his, Kurt's fingers curling in Sam's shaggy blonde hair, and Sam's hand comes up to bury itself in that perfect brown coif, raking through it urgently as he pulls Kurt close by the arm around his hip. Kurt's body surges up against his in response, nothing but those flimsy mage robes and Templar undress clothes between them.

A fire the likes of which Sam has only ever guiltily imagined a few times, rocking in the dark to hide his shame from the Maker's eyes, starts up, but there is no sword of mercy to save him from the blaze in his belly, burning round his hips, up his spine. Kurt makes a soft sound into their kiss as Sam gently, clumsily tries to do to Kurt what Kurt just did to him, to lick his lip and tug it ever so carefully between his teeth, and that tiny sound, a hitching, needy whimper, shoots straight into the parts of Sam that smolder, burning longest. "Kurt," he breathes, opening his eyes (when did he close them?) to stare into that hazy blue. "Kurt, I didn't – I didn't think you would..."

"Just, Sam, please," Kurt sighs in between insistent kisses, one hand sliding down over Sam's neck to trace his shoulder and loop back along his collarbone, yanking at the strings of his shirt. His fingers fumble at the ties in a startlingly poignant way. "Let me – just –"

Sam kisses him gently, thinking that he's beginning to understand how this works now, how their mouths fit together as though by design, how soft those lips feel against his own, how they look now, more cherry than rose, kiss-bruised and sorely tempting. "I've got it." He reaches up to undo the ties, Kurt's fingers hovering eagerly over his hands, then sheds the garment. It falls like a feather to the floor, soundlessly.

Kurt's breath sucks in and he rocks back onto his heels to run his hands down Sam's bare chest. He looks astonished when he raises his gaze to Sam's again. "And you were content enough to hide all this from the world, clanking about like a drawer full of silverware with every step," Kurt says in disbelief.

"It's my uniform," Sam protests shyly, shivering as Kurt's hands caress his chest in eager wonder, tracing ridges of muscle as though taking an anatomy class with his fingertips. They brush over his nipples without even _doing _anything and Sam chokes, twitching in a completely unattractive way, he's sure. Sam is aware in a kind of abstract way that he's a strapping young man (everyone's always said it of him in those exact words, usually after thanking him for doing heavy lifting), but Kurt is looking at him with this sort of heated delight like he's – _something else_. "I have to," Sam says. His tongue feels thick in his mouth.

"Uh-_huh_." Kurt's eyes are so blue and so expressive, flecks of green all but dancing in his irises as they shine with mirth. Sam flushes, desperately wanting him and desperately unsure what to do, his big hand spanning practically the back of Kurt's entire head as he cups it and leans forward and kisses him again. Kurt makes a little humming purr of satisfaction as he lets Sam explore his mouth, their noses knocking softly together. Kurt keeps one hand around the back of Sam's neck, the other trailing Sam's musculature between them, caressing every ridge of his abdomen and the broad division of his pectorals, and Sam is startled out of the kiss when Kurt's teasing fingers suddenly turn _cold_ – cold as ice.

"Kurt!"

"Shhh," Kurt says, and he grins up at Sam slyly, wiggling one hand in front of Sam. His tapered fingertips are fringed with ice, Sam realizes, the familiar feel of Kurt's delicate, precise magic sweeping dizzily about the sixth sense a Templar hones with lyrium to trace and track mages. Sam unfolds that sixth sense and spreads it wide as wings, and every sensation is abruptly heightened, somehow, Kurt's fingers tracing a deliberate pattern over Sam's chest as though putting a stamp on his soul. Sam hasn't even realized how hot everything feels until the snow wrapped Kurt's fingers melts against his skin, but with a soft continuous bloom of magic Kurt keeps his fingers iced, tracing a dripping circle with complicated lines inside it, like the glyph Sam watched him placed on the door of the chantry—

"What are you doing?" Sam asks, just as an intoxicating, heady _rush_ of vigor and energy roars through him like water in the rapids of a river and his lips part as he realizes that Kurt has cast some spell that makes _everything_ feel so _alive_, the colors are so _bright_ and his blood _leaps_ in his veins, his skin tingles and his entire consciousness _explodes_ outwards as though his sixth sense has become _twelve_, and –

Kurt places his hands on Sam's hips and kisses him. Just that, Kurt's delicious lips nibbling at Sam's own, a dozen fluttering little kisses laid upon Sam's mouth in the guise of one, feels as though it will undo Sam, who struggles to catch up with his own exploded awareness. The roof of the chapel falls away in great chunks as though it's made of gray sponge, the roof is crashing down around them but it doesn't make any noise, it all softly bounces and melts into the stone floor, running into the grooves. Clear water catches the light poured through stained glass. The walls still stand even without a roof, the stained glass still imposing, still extant, but Andraste's ecstasy is turned into pale slurry between the stones. The sun hangs high above them in a weird pink sky, miles and miles above the earth.

In the distance, crooked on the horizon, the Black City sits.

Sam only barely notices, shaking under Kurt's touch, and Kurt easily walks him backwards until Sam feels a pew press against his calves. The fact that Kurt can both walk and kiss him at the same time is more magical to Sam than any glyph Kurt might cast, because Sam can barely _breathe_ and kiss Kurt at the same time, especially not reeling under whatever aura Kurt has spun through those fingers of his and wrapped all round Sam. One of Kurt's hands comes round to just below Sam's bellybutton where his breeches are tied and with a single deft pull, Sam's breeches gape loose.

"Get down." Kurt traces the line of Sam's lips with his tongue as though illuminating the first letter of a manuscript, his eyes half-lidded, watching Sam. Sam moans aloud, his fingers tight in Kurt's hair and his other hand spasming against the small of Kurt's back. Kurt noses along Sam's jaw to whisper in his ear, "And bend over."

Sam feels no compulsion. He is free to act. He is free to walk away – but he doesn't; Kurt's quiet, precise voice (it rings so prettily in Sam's ears, it is the only sound for miles, the only sound worth hearing) is poetry, it is a long thin diamond, it's the gold stars on the base of Sam's uniform, it is the thrum as a Bard tunes their instrument and the echo of a chime and the breath a lover draws before speaking those fateful words, _I, love – _ and Sam steps out of his breeches and kicks them aside before dropping to his knees. He wraps his naked arms around Kurt's legs and presses his head against the deep indigo of Kurt's robes as though his grip will keep Kurt from falling, from ever jumping. Kurt combs his fingers through Sam's hair affectionately.

"On your knees," Kurt says softly, "against the pew."

Sam presses his cheek to those robes, heaving a breath of Kurt's scent, his eyes shut before he gives a small nod. He shuffles around on his knees and leans his forehead against the pew. Kurt takes hold of his hips firmly and pulls Sam back even more until his back is level with the pew, and Sam's holding on to the edge of the worn wood with both hands and pressing his forehead to white knuckles. He feels Kurt step between his legs and nudge his knees slightly apart. "I've never," he hears Kurt say, and he can hear Kurt swallowing hard as though that lump is in his own throat, "done this before—"

Sam looks over his shoulder, then stops breathing, because Kurt's shed his robes and is standing tall and slender and nude with one hand shining slick against an impressive length, and the sight is somehow so very beautiful, the strange sun lining the edges of Kurt's form with gold. This gilt and lovely being, this slender and charming and wry receptacle of a power that could level this entire Tower, smiles a little, and it makes him so real somehow, the touch of hesitation, the shy curve of his smile as he blushes under Sam's adoring eye.

"But I've had it done," Kurt continues, laying one hand flat against the small of Sam's back. He strokes himself up and down, twice, smearing the slickness on his hand down that length, using Sam's back to balance himself. Sam watches in fascination; he could watch Kurt do that for as long as time is still in this place, hear that sweet, high gasp as his thumb smooths oil along his arousal forever without tiring. "I promise," and Kurt's voice is a little ragged, "this won't hurt you, and it will be good."

The hand on Sam's back slides over to his hip and lines Sam up. Sam feels the flutter of Kurt's magic, an astral wave, and suddenly his backside is slick and dripping; Kurt's hand leaves his length to slide down Sam's cleft, spreading the oil he's summoned, his fingers tickling over Sam's opening before they work themselves in smoothly. Sam has never felt so vulnerable in front of anyone before, stripped of armor, stripped of clothing, legs spread, parted and pierced to his most vulnerable depths.

Something about the spell of vigor Kurt has cast on him makes pain irrelevant, easily borne. Sam's lips part in a small _oh_ as Kurt's fingers probe him; it's a strange feeling, one he's imagined before, fleetingly, though not like this – Sam was raised as something between a shepherd and a farmboy and he knew that sometimes the animals would... but he had never conceived of _this_, and when Kurt's long fingers crook inside him, a husky groan rolls up from deep inside Sam's chest and he arches back onto Kurt's hand. The tips of Kurt's tapered fingers touch some kind of ember within him, and if Andraste's martyrdom were ecstatic, then so much more is this, now, as Sam tosses his head back desperately.

"It feels strange," Sam manages, though that's an understatement, and Kurt gives a small laugh, the breathlessness of which shows that he's not unaffected, either.

"It is a little, at first," Kurt agrees, his other hand caressing the small of Sam's back in a few comforting strokes before he spreads that hand flat for balance. The fingers within Sam spread, and Kurt opens Sam up by degrees, the hand on Sam's back keeping Sam from bucking. Rather than squirm, Sam trembles, swallowing raw moans as the young mage thoroughly prepares him.

"Kurt, _please_," he moans when Kurt has stoked that ember nearly past bearing.

"You're almost ready," Kurt says, in a tone that will brook no argument. His hand presses harder on Sam's back as Sam strains to impale himself deeper on those deft and clever fingers, Kurt's other hand rotating within Sam in a corkscrew motion that sends all manner of pleasurable sensation radiating through Sam's body. Kurt scissors his fingers open and widens that channel further, and one of Sam's hands drops to his cock as his shaking arm is left to bear his entire weight upon the pew.

Sam sobs out, "please, please, Kurt, I can't anymore," as he gives his painfully hard length a single stroke. Under the best of non-combat circumstances Sam isn't especially coordinated, and his other hand slips, sweat-dampened, from the pew as arousal and urgency wrack his frame. He catches himself on the floor, dropping his head. The tips of his hair swing in a blur before his eyes as his head hangs, dizzy with desire.

Kurt removes his fingers, leaving a sensation of crippling vacancy that he immediately moves to fill, pulling Sam in by the hips. But Sam looks over his shoulder and gasps, "Wait."

Kurt's hands still on Sam's hips, he leans forward slightly. Sam can feel him pressing between his slick cleft, he can feel Kurt _throbbing_ against him, and for all that, Kurt's eyes remain perfectly attentive as they meet Sam's gaze, lyrium-bright and so beautiful it distracts Sam briefly. But Kurt waits for Sam to gather his scattered thoughts without comment, his thumbs moving in gentle circles over Sam's waist.

"I want to be able to see you, when we do this," Sam says, flushing with reticence and want, though he keeps his gaze focused on Kurt's in entreaty.

Kurt's lips quirk upwards in a smile so perfectly sweet it seems impossible to pair with his hard girth against Sam's back. "Then you will," Kurt answers tenderly, moving back. In a sense Sam feels quite out of his head, dazed by the profundity of his desire, nearly helpless in its face, but Kurt helps him to lie on his back in the aisle of the chapel. The stone beneath Sam's back doesn't feel like anything at all, there is an absence of the usual sensation one might expect with bare hot skin pressed to a cold floor, but Sam only distantly registers that strangeness as Kurt kneels between his legs.

Kurt, now, everything about him feels real, looks real, his pale cheeks ruddy, curls of dark hair bouncing over his high white brow, the faint sheen of sweat upon his slender, defined chest, the subtle and well-concealed shiver of his hands as they trail over Sam's prone figure with all the longing and ardor of a committed romantic. And his eyes, canted and long-lashed, defy Sam's powers of description. Perhaps if he were a man of poetry, and not of the sword, he might manage the task, but Sam can only think of lyrium: the prized stuff of creation, the fabled Waters of the Fade.

But lyrium is always cool. It never warms, and it certainly never gets as hot as Kurt's eyes are now, blazing with feeling and desire. Kurt leans over Sam, braced on either side of his torso, and Sam thinks about his vows, "protect and serve," but he can't quite remember the rest of it, if it's the Chantry he's supposed to serve and protect, or the people, or some other entity, Andraste, the Maker, the mages, this mage, this sylph above and around him –

And with one push, _inside_ him. Sam's mind dissolves, nebulous thoughts wisping away into nothing as his legs lock about Kurt's narrow waist to pull Kurt closer, _deeper_. Sam understands now why Kurt took such care, why he cast a glyph on Sam to prevent him any pain, as Kurt's considerable length and girth fills him to the brim, stretches him and stuffs him. Once he's all the way inside of Sam, Kurt stops, shaking.

"Kurt," Sam whispers, "I, I, you," but he can't drag enough thought together to form a coherent sentence, and Kurt tilts his head down to kiss him, that slight change of angle affecting the way Kurt rests within him, brushing against that inner ember Kurt had found with his fingers and finds again with the tilt of his hips against Sam's thighs. Sam's fingers spasm, scrabbling across the floor as though he could clench stone like a blanket. He bucks up against Kurt, whining into their kiss, and Kurt breaks it off in a breathless giggle, nosing Sam's jaw, licking sweat off his skin.

"Steady now," Kurt says, his voice muffled but quite _mischievous_ as he pulls out slowly, licking along Sam's collarbone like a cat at his bowl. He's almost all the way out and Sam is twitching up for him, his legs tightening to keep Kurt within him, when Kurt _slams_ back inside of him. Sam cries out so loudly he feels as though he can hear the sound careening in the broad pink sky above him. His back arches up off the floor as his head tosses, damp blonde hair whipping across his cheek.

He is undone, empty of all thought as Kurt maintains with precision this slow and punishing rhythm, slowly out and then a hard slam back in that jerks Sam off the floor every time. At some point Sam's hands come up to claw at Kurt's back, and Sam's never heard Kurt's voice get that low before, sultry, throaty moans leaving those lovely parted lips, the sound and sight making Sam's cock dribble with need. "Kurt, you're a _torment_," Sam chokes out, and Kurt's wry answering grin shines in answer.

Above them the sky hangs fixed in its place at eternal high noon; above them the Black City sits in a sky smeared with clouds that run like watercolors, but Sam's eyes don't leave Kurt's form, the line of the mage's throat as he tosses his head back surely the most graceful curve to ever bless Sam's sight. Sometimes Kurt lowers his head to tease and nibble along Sam's chest as he fucks him, to trace teasing loops of ice across Sam's heated flesh with a playful hand, ice that melts almost instantly, leaving trails Kurt licks up with eyes half-lidded on Sam's own. Sam shudders beneath him and threads his fingers through Kurt's feather-soft hair, charmed by the way it curls slightly with the sweat of exertion, his cock twitching every time Kurt's heady, entrancing gaze meets his.

Kurt increases his pace as Sam brings a hand around his own cock again, too lost to pleasure to care for how wanton he must look. His moans hitch to the rhythm of Kurt's thrusts, his legs untiring as they remain locked around Kurt's narrow hips to keep Kurt close, and sometimes Kurt breathes his name out in dazed wonderment over and over as his fingers press into Sam's hips or curl against his abdomen, and Sam can't think of a single benediction that has ever meant more to him or rung with such intolerable beauty.

Kurt abruptly goes still; his back bows, shoulders hunching, head dropping as he shudders. His fine brows furrow, his lashes sweeping shut against his cheeks, and a high, breathy keen leaves him, the sound light as wind. Sam squeezes his cock and comes hard over his own fist as Kurt shivers and spills inside of him, Sam's low groan a rough counterpoint to Kurt's silvery cry.

Kurt pulls out, and the sudden emptiness where Kurt had filled him as some elegant knife fills an enameled sheath startles Sam, but Kurt drags himself over to Sam's side and collapses there in a pale pile of exhausted mage. He vanishes the mess over Sam's skin with a considerate wave of his hand. Sam pulls Kurt in close without missing a beat, burying his face in the soft skin where Kurt's neck and shoulder meet. Kurt is languid in his arms, still quivering from the force of his climax, and Sam kisses that tender flesh solicitously. Kurt gives a tiny purr of contentment, nuzzling closer and throwing a leg between Sam's so that they lie there in a huddle of tangled limbs, and Sam enfolds the mage tightly in his arms as Kurt presses a soft, loving kiss to the dip between his collarbones.

It almost hurts, how good Kurt feels there, how intoxicating his scent is, how his sweat-damp hair curls soft against Sam's cheek, and Sam's heart pounds painfully as though it bears a thorn that jounces with his pulse. He combs his fingers through Kurt's hair, and when Kurt quietly meets his gaze, Sam can see some of his own pain reflected there, too, wry and wistful until Sam kisses it determinedly away into the bright smile that suits the young mage so much better.

When the stones beneath them dissolve and smear, sending them plummeting the length of the tower, neither lover, their gazes fixed upon one another, notices.


End file.
